English Civil War
English Civil War An extremely important war in England's history from 1642-1648, the arrival of Charles I stirred up the religion of England and not in a good way. An English version of the bible was published, the previous only being available in Latin which not many people could understand. This allowed people to get their own ideas of Religion, hence the religion Puritanism was born. When this new religion began it eventually became the "main religion", as there was many fanatics. But Charles wasn't having any of it. He wanted churches to be glorious, beautiful. He wanted big celebrations with booze and he wanted men to stuff themselves with Goose and other luxuries. Puritans took the bible literally and wanted things to be extremely simple. No parties. No gambling. No smoking. Parliament was made up of mostly Puritans now, but it's extremely difficult to discuss things like power with a king that strong believes in the Divine Right of the King. This quarrel would never be settled without some sort of war. So Began the English Civil War The majority of Charles supports were country folk, whereas Parliament supports were heavily Puritan and middle class. Parliament had a big upper hand, as the Navy fell in favour of Parliament, not allowing Charles to ship any weapons or food. But the Royalist cavalry were no weak force. They had a number of successes and Charles was thriving in the early years of the war. It didn't look like it was over but Charles definitely had the upper hand at this point. Here Comes the Cromwell Oliver Cromwell was arguably the turning point for Parliament. He formed the Ironside, a disciplined powerful army that fought for god. The Ironsides were extremely effective, as Charles's cavalry was nowhere near as disciplined as the Ironsides were; after "victory" they would gallop over to enemy tents and steal all the goods. This was a horrible thing to do, it left weak, vunerable soldiers to be swept up by strong cavalry. And Charles pretty much didn't win Battles because of it. The Ironsides were thriving with a draw and two victories. Between 1644-1646 the Ironsides demolish the royalist cavalry; and in 1646 the King surrenders to the Scottish Army. In 1647 the Scots sold Charles for £400,000 to Parliament. Parliament wanted change. They already had power but the population wanted a King, because Puritanism wasn't followed by everyone. They offered him some terms but he refused them, an argument broke out. The army wanted the King executed, but over 50 members of Parliament wanted Charles to be king on the basis that he signed an agreement to not misbehave in the future. Finally he was imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle in the Isle of Wight, but Charles was plotting to start the Civil War all over again, he talked to the Scots and they agreed to help him, so the war broke out again, but this time Charles had some assistance. This didn't last long though as the King tried but was then executed in 1649 a year after he retried the war.